ChatterOn for Messenger

@bentossell @bentossell Hi Ben, I can understand your position. I too had an ad coming in my messenger. We at ChatterOn do not allow to push advertisements if the user is not talking to the bot in real time. We allow only ads which are contextual and targeted to be sent when the user is asking for something specific. Here are our thoughts on Advertisement on Chat bots - There are a lot of bot developers (students, enthusiasts, etc.) who work hard for around 2 months to build chat bots but are demotivated with the lack of monetization options available to them and start loosing interest. Any new technology requires a lot of effort from developers to make it reach great heights. Lack of monetization in chat bots is one of the many reasons for the lack of success stories in chat bot space. A wise man once said — “Money is the greatest motivator” If you look at the history of development of great platforms — websites, mobile apps, both have one thing in common — A huge number of businesses on these sustain themselves by advertisements. Taking this a step further, we already know that AR/VR will be the greatest advertisement platforms ever known to mankind.  We at ChatterOn, believe that advertisements on chat bots are inevitable. They might not be exactly the same as advertisements on the other platforms, but they will definitely come. So, is advertisement on chat bots bad? Advertisements on chat bots are not bad (if you use them sensibly, by not spamming the user). Historically, advertisements inside great platforms only enable developers and enthusiasts to find a way to monetize their efforts and push forward in building great experiences for their users. When iOS and Android were open to 3rd party developers, the first apps struggled in monetization and had to bank on advertisement to support their continuing development efforts. This is what we believe the exact case with chat bots also and at the position we are in, for the next 1–1.5 years, monetization via advertisements and other channels is going to drive developer efforts. Other Mediums of Monetization Advertisement is obviously not the only way of earning money in the chat bot space. There are multiple other ways like — affiliate marketing, cross-selling, up-selling, etc. We believe that these channels too will help developers sustain their development efforts and build great products on chat bots. We will be launching more integrations in the above mentioned channels to help developers earn money.

@aditjain93 oh yeah I totally understand that ads on these platforms are inevitable... as you said its on all the other platforms too. I don't agree with monetization issues being one of the reasons for the lack of success stories in chat bots. Bots are easy and inexpensive to build (Ive even built some myself)... its a great way to test the market and see if there is something there. But like many websites, I'd like to join, test it out, see if I like it and then money questions come later. I'm put off by a lot of sites that throw ads or ways for you to pay straight away before I even know if I like what the site does. I think the same should happen with bots. So say I'm a regular user for 2 weeks, then perhaps gently throw in monetisation. I think bot developers should consider this as bots is still a new territory. Ads are ads and I know they are not going away. But I just think people need to be sensible when thinking of the overall experience for the users - now this is true across all platforms, not just bots of course!

@bentossell True! We completely echo your thoughts here, that is one of the primary reason why we don't allow developers to 'push' ads. What are your thoughts about Conversational advertisements? No banner, no text ad that comes in the way of what you actually want, just event-triggered suggestions. For eg. You book a dinner date at one of your fav restaurants on Yelp bot. After the booking, the bot subtly asks, whether you'll be driving or taking a cab. If you are taking a cab, it will refer you to a cab service and use the data from the on-going chat. No redirection. I think that's the future. Event - triggered conversational advertisement.

@aditjain93 event triggered like you mention would be way better and suitable I think... However, I think that this is what the bot should be doing anyway... if you're doing an action like that it should recognise that and auto suggest booking your uber (because it knows thats your preferred method) too. I think the thought process of delivering value through ads in a bot is something that the bot should be doing in itself, and in doing so, could warrant having a monthly price tag. In this case, perhaps, it is the free users who get the ads served but the premium, paying members get the same sort of functionality but smarter, linked with your preferences and not as ads but as features of the bot. Having a bot that does all these kinds of clever things like this would be worth $10 a month to me easily, if it were something I used often enough. Semi-related to that use case is this post by @semil http://blog.semilshah.com/2016/0...

@semil Loved your article and specially the gatekeeper reference. I was having a conversation some time back and this topic came up. @bentossell You are right. I would argue on the paid services for developing nations where content is still 'free', but i agree largely to the thought process. We at ChatterOn are building something to enable this itself. I'll explain more - Apart from the big businesses, medium - small ones do not have the resources to do all of product, affiliate, cross-selling, partnerships while also handling the plethora of platforms they have to be live on (FB Messenger, Kik, Telegram, Alexa, Google Assistant and also AR/VR gadgets). That is exactly where ChatterOn comes in and help businesses and developers to focus on the product while providing awesome integrations to help them take care of the rest. Integrations will help in monetization like Advertisement (contextual, targeted only), Affiliate selling, Cross Selling, and maybe Conversational Advertisement in the future. What do you think about this?

@aditjain93 Gr8, love it

@bhuvanthaker Thanks a lot! Did you try out the ad integration?

@gijo_varghese Thanks a lot Gijo. Let's create great chat bots together... :)